Wars of Scottish Independence

The Wars of Scottish Independence (1296-1357) were a series of military campaigns fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England during the 13th and 14th centuries. Scotland revolted against English occupation in 1296, and the guerrilla campaign of William Wallace allowed for Robert Bruce, a powerful Scottish noble, to become King of Scotland in 1306. Robert Bruce and his son David II of Scotland would resist English invasions for years, and King Edward III of England was forced to renounce his claim to lordship over Scotland in 1328. However, war broke out again in 1332, and it was not until 1341 that the English were again evicted from Scotland, and until 1357 that Edward III finally made peace with Scotland.

History
During a 70-year peace with England in the 13th century, Scotland gradually expanded its area of control beyond the central lowland core, suppressing Galloway's autonomy by 1245, and, in 1266, acquiring the Hebrides from Norway by the Treaty of Perth. In 1286, however, King Alexander III of Scotland was killed by a fall from his horse. His three children had already died, leaving the only obvious heir his three-year old granddaughter, Margaret, Maid of Norway. The infant Queen was sent for from Norway, and her planned engagement to Edward I of England's son Edward of Caernarvon (the future Edward II of England) seemed to presage a union of the English and Scottish crowns, albeit one that was supposed to guarantee Scottish autonomy.

The kingship of John Balliol
In September 1290, Margaret died while on her way from Bergen in Norway to Scotland, throwing the Scottish nobility into disarray. Edward I summoned an Anglo-Scottish parliament on the border at Norham in May 1291, and demanded that the Scottish lords acknowledge his right to decide the process by which the next king would be selected. One by one they did so, first Robert Bruce of Annandale and last John Balliol, who had an independent claim to the throne as a descendant of David I of Scotland. Finally, in November 1292, a commission with 24 jurors and the English king as judge selected Balliol to rule Scotland, but he was not an independent monarch since he owed his position entirely to the favor of Edward I.

John Balliol tried to assert himself, but his refusal to attend Parliaments in York and his maneuvering for a French alliance brought the wrath of Edward ("Longshanks" as the Scots came to call him) down upon Scotland. The Scots were defeated at Dunbar in late April, and in early July, John surrendered. Edward had him summarily stripped of his royal vestments, giving rise to Balliol's unfortunate nickname of "Toom Tabard" (empty surcoat).

Having placed garrisons in many Scottish castles, Edward I then left for Gascony in August 1296. Already the rumblings of resistance were growing louder and a series of risings broke out in spring 1297, with an able leader emerging in the shape of William Wallace, who defeated the English at Stirling Bridge in 1297. Wallace overreached himself and risked another pitched battle at Falkirk in July 1298, where he was soundly beaten.

For a while, the protection of their French ally Philip IV had kept Longshanks at bay, but the French defeat at Courtrai in 1302 and the subsequent Peace of Amiens, which excluded Scotland, gave Edward I free rein once more. In 1303, the english came north again and by early 1304 the Scottish leader John Comyn had surrendered. At a meeting called at Greyfriars' Church in Dumfries in February 1306 to discuss their tactics, Robert Bruce struck Comyn dead and assumed the leadership of the anti-English party. On 27 March 1306, he declared himself King at the traditional royal coronation site of Scone, but it was an inauspicious first year and by early 1307, he was a fugitive in western Scotland.

Return of Robert Bruce
King Robert's comeback began with a victory at Loudon Hill in May 1307, and from then he won an uninterrupted string of victories, aided by the accession of Edward II to the English throne in 1307, a man who lacked the firm resolution of his father and did not adequately fund the Scottish garrisons. Aberdeen fell to the Scots in July 1308, and in 1309 Bruce was able to call his first Scottish Parliament at St. Andrews.

In spring 1315, only Stirling Castle remained in English hands, and it was to save this last redoubt of English power in Scotland that Edward II finally stirred himself to a counterstrike. This ended in disaster, with the English army being cut apart at Bannockburn on 24 June 1314. By 1315, Robert had taken the offensive against northern England, besieging Carlisle. In the same year his brother Edward Bruce landed in Ulster in an attempt to topple English rule in Ireland. The invasion bogged down, and though Edward was declared High King of Ireland in 1316, it was a hollow title and the Scot soccupation was largely confined to the north. By the time Robert recovered Berwick, the last Scottish possession occupied by England, in 1318, Edward Bruce's forces were nearly exhausted and in October 1318 he was killed in battle near Dundalk.

The Declaration of Arbroath
A succession crisis ensued as Robert still had no direct heir, and he feared that Edward II, who was grooming John Balliol's son Edwardr for the Scottish throne, might invade. These anxieties led to a formal Scottish statement of independence by the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, and the choice by Robert of his grandson Robert Stewart as his successor. The failure of an attempt by Edward II to invade Scotland and the weakening of the English position by an outbreak of civil war there in 1326-27 finally brought about a negotiated peace. In spring 1328, by the Treaty of Edinburgh, Edward III of England renounced his claim to lordship over Scotland. The country's independence seemed finally secured.

English Gains in Power
In 1332, Edward Balliol, the son of John, invaded Scotland with the encouragement of Edward III. He defeated the army of Bruce loyalists and had crowned himself King at Scone. A victory at Halidon Hill in 1333, led to Edward III taking much of southern Scotland. The young King David II was sent to France for safety, and Robert Stewart rallied and drove the English out by 1341. David II returned from French exile in 1341, and wanted to match his father Robert Bruce's record against the English. In 1346, he responded to an appeal from his French allies after their defeat at the Battle of Crecy. He lost to the English at the Battle of Neville's Cross and was held prisoner. David II secured his release from England in 1357, in exchange for a hefty payment to King Edward III. He found his kingdom devastated, as the core regions of Scotland had suffered badly during the wars, and Lothian had been ravaged by the English as recently as 1356 during the "Black Candlemas". The King's authority was much reduced, and he was forced to impose heavy annual land taxes to restore the royal income. In 1357, England and Scotland finally made peace under the Treaty of Berwick, under which Scotland pledged a 100,000 mark ransom for King David II's release, and Edward III dropped his pursuit of Scotland.